Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/76

 ^Q LANGUEDOC. books for two hundred livres Tournois, for the payment of which the consuls went security. How the attempt failed and how it was discovered does not appear, but probably Bernard at the first overtures confided the plot to his superiors and led on the con- spirators to their ruin.^^ The whole community was now at the mercy of the Inquisi- tion, and it was not disposed to be lenient in its triumph. While the trials were yet going on, the citizens made a fresh appeal to Pierre Chains, the royal chancellor, who was passing through Tou- louse on a mission from the court of Paris to that of Aragon. This was easily disposed of, for on September 13, 1285, the inquis- itors triumphantly brought before him Bernard Garric to repeat the confession made a week previous. He had thoroughly learned his lesson, and the only conclusion which the royal representative could reach was that Carcassonne was a hopeless nest of heretics, deserving the severest measures of repression. As a last resort recourse was had to Honorius lY., but the only result was a brief from him to the inquisitors expressing his grief that the people of Carcassonne should be impeding the Inquisition with all their strength, and ordering the punishment of the recalcitrants irre- spective of their station, order, or condition, an expression which shows that the opposition had not arisen from heretics.f In reply to these complaints the inquisitors could urge with some truth that heresy, though hidden, was still busy. Although heretic seigneurs and nobles had been by this time well-nigh de- stroyed and their lands had passed to others, there was still infec- tion among the bourgeoisie of the cities and the peasantry. It is one of the noteworthy features of Catharism, moreover, that at Doat, XXVI. 197, 245, 265, 266.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. p. 282. slnche Morlana, the archdeacon of Carcassonne, who is represented as bear- ing a leading part in the conspiracy, belonged to one of the noblest families of the city His brother Arnaud, who at one ti'me was Seneschal of Foix, was like- wise implicated, and died a few years later in the bosom of the Church. In 1328 Jean Duprat, then inquisitor, obtained evidence that Arnaud had been hereti- ' cated during a sickness, and again subsequently on his death-bed (Doat, XX 111. 128) This would seem to lend color to the charge of heresy agamst the con- spirators, but the evidence was considered too flimsy to warrant condemnation tDoat, XXVI. 254.- Bern. Guidon. Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 93).— Arch, de I'Inq. de Care. (Doat, XXXII. 132).
 * Bern. Guidon. Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 93, 97).-Molinier op. cit. p. 35.-